Saved for Science? (Summary, already written in 2008 by Jay Butler). Especially in northern France, much has been lost in the course of the wars that devastated the area, but much has been saved too. Particularly intriguing among the saved Bronze Age objects are the bronze casting moulds, which in prehistoric times must have been common objects, but which are now scarce because most examples would have been sacrificed to the smith’s ever-ready melting pot. One such object, a finely preserved half-mould for a socketed axe (of the Plainseau family, with slight plastic imitation wings) is in the possession of the Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch. It was purchased by the museum in 1962, for the sum of 50 Dutch guilders, from a reputable Eindhoven antique dealer, Dirven, in that city. The museum records state only that it was found in the north of France or in Belgium. A not uninteresting part of the work of a researcher working on the Bronze Age is the tracking down of missing finds: for example, a half-mould for a socketed axe, said to have been found in the surroundings of Amiens, which was seen, described and (well) drawn by Henri Breuil before 1902. This half-mould was said to be part of a hoard of bronze implements, which included spearheads, pins and socketed axes. Also belonging to the hoard was a core (also of bronze) for casting socketed axes.
